


Diary of the Soul-Sucking Wenches aka the making of Proving A Point

by elldotsee, J_Baillier



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst galore, Don't copy to another site, Ficcy business, Informations, M/M, Meta, Nonsense, author's notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 08:44:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elldotsee/pseuds/elldotsee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier
Summary: How the novel-length fusion of Sherlock and "Me Before You" came to be.





	Diary of the Soul-Sucking Wenches aka the making of Proving A Point

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Proving A Point](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18826798) by [elldotsee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elldotsee/pseuds/elldotsee), [J_Baillier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier). 

> If you've somehow found this, most likely you will know what we'll be talking about. Copious spoilers will be found in this thing, so better go read the story first if you haven't done so yet.
> 
> This thing will start with some questions and answers, and end with select hopefully amusing quotes from along the process from both authors and their beta, 88thparallel.
> 
> [[an index and guide to all of J. Baillier's Sherlock stories](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011148)]

_In my recovery_  
_ I'm a soldier at war_  
_ I have broken down walls_  
_ I defined_  
_ I designed_  
_ My recovery_

— James Arthur  


**Where did the idea for the story first come from and how did you end up writing it together?**  
**Elldotsee**** (E): ** I read the book _Me Before You_ (MBY) shortly after its debut. It was a good story — plenty of tear-jerking — and it stuck with me. I watched the movie not long after that and it was the same, except that there were certain things that always niggled at me, such as the ending. A couple of years later, one fateful night while scrolling Netflix, I stumbled on it again and thought, “oh I loved this movie — this will be great to watch before I fall asleep.” I don’t think I made it fifteen minutes into it before my ficcy-sense (is that a thing?) tingled and I was jotting notes down. I wrote several scenes and some elaborate plot outlines, but they sat mostly untouched for nearly six months before I decided to start working on the story again. Throughout the course of that revival, I started sharing bits of my story ideas and teaser scenes with J, and eventually she started sharing her ideas right back. Her ideas turned into copious headcanons, those headcanons turned into “here I wrote a thing do with it what you will Elsie”, and eventually I proposed the idea to her of just WRITING THE THING WITH ME. Thankfully, she agreed.  
**J. Baillier**** (J): **I knew of the film but hadn't seen it, having assumed — based on the posters — that it was some uninteresting, run-of-the-mill chickflick. But, when Elldotsee began explaining what it was really about, I soon found myself reading the book and then watching the film. The headcanons had started even before that but getting to know the original really got the ideas flowing. Before long, I was flooding Elldotsee's phone full of them. Daily. Maniacally. And, once one of my ideas led to the creation of a draft of an entire chapter, I began… um… dipping… um fingers in (why does that sound so porny?).

**How, **_precisely_, does one go about suggesting co-authorship to another fic author?  
**J: **I believe Elldotsee has the whole conversation screenshotted. *laughs* It was all very romantic. Lots of Sherlock quotes.  
**E: ***nods* it’s true.  
**J: **Shame you can't really go down on one knee online.  
**E: **You’re quite the co-authoring polygamist. Good thing none of us are the jealous type. Maybe we need a reality TV show: Sister-author-wives.  
**J: **I do like the idea of people fighting over me.

**Can you give a brief summary of the book and film for those unfamiliar with it?**  
**J: **Will Traynor used to have it all: he was a high-powered London City businessman with a taste for extreme sports, arm candy girlfriends, and a cool London apartment. Then, he gets hit by a car and ends up C5–C6 tetraplegic. He is forced to move back home to his family's country pile, girlfriend says bye bye; Will doesn't want to engage with his old friends nor does he try to go back to work. He wants to die, but his suicide attempt fails, so he contacts the Swiss organisation called Dignitas to apply for assisted suicide. That prompts his desperate mother to make an unconventional hire into his pool of care staff so that he might rethink his decision. Cue Louisa Clark.  
**E: **Louisa is a disaster: She is quirky and unconventional, and so very cringey-awkward (at least at first — I can scarcely watch the scene of her job interview with Mrs Traynor!). Will and Lou have a really tough go at first (even worse than John and Sherlock). Will is horribly rude and Lou is horribly _perky_and it seems like they’re better off just forgetting this whole terrible thing. But eventually, something shifts, and they start to become more (oh hey there, enemies-to-friends-to-<strike>lovers</strike>; fancy seeing you here). I won’t spoil the ending of the book or movie, but they do not quite get the same happy ending as our duo does (then again, Will would probably disagree at least partly).

**Could you give a quick rundown of other key characters that you have mirrored in this adaptation? Is there, for example, a big brother in MBY?**  
**J: **Will Traynor has a little sister, but her role is very limited.  
**E: **She’s very much just a plot device!  
**J: **Mycroft's role (and his sophisticated country aesthetic) is based on that of Will's mother, Mrs Traynor, who's a lawyer and wears nice pearls and knits and the same Barbour coat I have and approve of. She seems cold and aloof, but especially in the book we learn how tough a time she's had — and keeps having — as she bears witness to her son's predicament, and how sad and frustrated she is about Will's plan.  
**E: **Book-version-Mrs Traynor is sort of a mashup of our Mycroft and our Mrs Holmes, the latter whom we didn’t get to explore very much (the same applies to movie-version-Mrs Traynor). J brought a lot of Mycroft’s character to life, making him a much more well-rounded (and well-liked!) character than I originally had in mind. You really end up feeling for him a lot throughout the fic.  
**J: **7PercentSolution has helped me develop a taste for Mycroft, and I love writing him. It's a nice challenge for my language skills in particular. I find him endearing in that he is a hugely powerful and intelligent man, but he gets hugely frustrated and clueless about how to manage his black sheep of a little brother. He does everything he can to make Sherlock comfortable, to ensure he's well-looked-after, but their relationship is complicated, and Sherlock finds it immensely embarrassing to have to rely on Mycroft for emotional support. Big Bro is definitely his emotional punching bag, but he needs someone else for the rest — someone of his own choosing. Someone sexy. And soldierly. But let's not get ahead of ourselves; Elsie you'd better tell us about Tallie since she's your creation.  
**E: **Tallie’s full name is Natalia (I imagine Mycroft and her own mother are probably the only people that are allowed to call her that), and originally I wanted her to be a female version of Nathan, Will Traynor’s hunky nurse. But… she sort of morphed into her own character, and I loved what she became at the hands of the collective J+E brain: a tough-as-nails, no-nonsense professional with a soft spot for Sherlock, and eventually also for John. I love that she doesn’t let John off easily, especially once he starts trying to change up the status quo in the annexe. She’s very protective of her patients and has clearly grown to care quite a lot for Sherlock particularly after saving his life, despite her best efforts not to get involved emotionally. And she’s really good at her job. It’s no wonder that J and I developed a bit of a crush on her!  
**J: **Our beta 88thparallel totally called Tallie out for probably writing johnlock fic in her spare time.  
**E: **It felt important that we have Sherlock’s nurse be female in our version, in order to contrast John’s character in the same way that Lou and Nathan complemented each other.  
**J: **Plus we reasoned that Sherlock would probably feel less awkward and less tempted to make unfavourable physical comparisons between his nurse and himself if his nurse was of a gender he wasn't attracted to. Which brings us to Leo, who's probably the closest we get to Nathan from _Me Before You_. I can't stop chuckling at the image of Mycroft scrunching up his nose at what he considers a linguistically extremely uncultured creature from the colonies. As for the Met, there are no police people in the original since Will was a CEO of some City company, not a consulking detective. Will used to have a girlfriend and friends he hung out with; we know that Sherlock most certainly possessed no such things (except of course Greg and Molly and Mrs Hudson were his friends but he hadn't quite realised that). Louisa has a marathon/triathlon-obsessed boyfriend in MBY who of course has no equivalent in _Point_.  
**E: **_GOOD RIDDANCE!_  
**J: **Mycroft does canonically have that treadmill…  
  
**How did you choose the POV for the story?**  
J: The book is mostly told through Louisa's POV, presumably to preserve the element of shock and surprise when she discovers Will's suicide plan.  
**E: **The book does occasionally switch POV, providing additional depth to the minor characters which I felt was definitely missing in the movie version.  
**J: **Agreed. We chose John because we wanted to retain suspense over certain plot events, namely whether Sherlock would change his mind. It was hard to adapt back to past tense, by the way, since I usually prefer to use limited third person present tense. Using a limited POV makes the main character very easily relatable since the reader doesn't know any more than they do and there is no all-knowing narrator, so the readers get to experience the twists and turns sort of in real-time. Sherlock's POV would have been so damned bleak, and we didn't feel like it would have added all that much in terms of getting the plot moving forward.  
**E**: I edited away all of your present tenses. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, I guess.

**Was there anything about MBY you wanted to particularly preserve and highlight?**  
**J: **I loved the fact that it was Louisa's genuine, spontaneous way of reacting to Will that broke through his defences. When recently severely injured patients experience severe depression and suicidal ideation, professionals shoving those things aside with dismissive, condescending positivity will only further alienate those patients from the people seeking to help them. I also loved the setting and well, the _Englishness_ of the whole thing. Writing-wise, the ethics of the situation were a conundrum I found pretty irresistible.  
**E: **I loved the slowly building relationship between Louisa and Will and the idea that Lou was able to reach Will because she was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stifling situation. Their sarcastic and witty banter was wonderful and made several appearances in our version. My very favourite scene from the movie and the book is when they are at the concert; in my mind, that’s the real turning point of their relationship and their conversation in the car afterward has one of the most important lines in the entire story. It's vital to understanding Will’s pain and frustration, and his momentary relief from that: "I just... want to be a man who has been to a concert with a girl in a red dress. Just for a few minutes more." <3 Ugh, WILL!! *sniffle*  
**J: **The concert scene was a highlight of MBY for me as well. For Sherlock, of course, that concert experience was even more emotional and harrowing because not only did he have to face his belief that he had lost his chance for finding a nice man to love, but he also had to take in the concrete reality of having lost the ability to play his violin.  
**E: **Ugh yes. Thanks for the reminder, Satan!   
**J: **As usual, Satan serves angst for breakfast. There's also the shaving scene which we both loved for its quiet sensuality (so of course we had to grab it and pour copious amounts of angry angst on top). By the way, the chapter titles "_Scored on his heart_" and "_Someone I couldn't even imagine_" are MBY quotes.

**Were there things you found problematic in MBY?**  
**E****: **It's a good example that it's entirely possible to enjoy something _and _consider it deeply problematic.  
**J: **The book does a better job than the movie in illustrating varying viewpoints from the disabled community regarding assisted suicide, but the core of the issue is that Jojo Moyes still kinda paints the overall picture that of course Will wants to die — because he's tetraplegic. A lot could have been done in both the book and the movie to underline that this is just one fictional person's decision based on his individual values. Very few stories like MBY get public attention or screen time, so even if it is the story of one individual, it inevitably becomes representative of the entire issue, and that's why I can understand why so many have considered it very problematic. I do, too. It's particularly dangerous for an able-bodied person to act as an uninvited spokesperson — even if just through fiction — of the disabled community. That's why we wanted to be very thorough in exploring the personal, individual aspects of Sherlock's decision-making and to avoid presenting blanket ethical statements about the value and quality of life of tetraplegic patients.  
**E: **Yeah. What she said. (So much more eloquently that I would’ve!)  
**J: **You can be perfectly eloquent when you're not being so terribly unruly.

**Were there other potential pitfalls you wanted to avoid?**  
**J: **Lots of stories about disabled characters are perky, positive, encouraging stories about overcoming adversity and finding happiness and motivation — about _overcoming __disability_. Many of these stories side-line their characters, ignore their struggles, treat them condescendingly. Disabled characters should not exist to make able-bodied readers to feel better about themselves, or just to _inspire_ people. This was something I wanted to avoid, and some of the scenes very late in the story are stern reminders that Sherlock's life is still difficult, but he now sees enough good things in it to go on. Another thing I felt important to avoid was to pin his motivation and will to live solely on John. Love is great and it conquers many things, but it's not a tenable motivation to want to live just for someone else — just because they don't want to lose you. Sherlock needed to want to live first and foremost for _Sherlock_.  
**E: **I, too, wanted to be very careful not to act as a spokesperson for the disabled community, or to ever assume — as an able-bodied individual — that I would know how a certain situation felt. But, I also didn't want to sound like I was tiptoeing around big and important issues. I wanted the focus of this story to be on the friendship and eventual love between John and Sherlock, with the background setting of Sherlock’s recovery and his adjustment process to having a permanent disability. Of course, it is an important part of his life and their life together, but the aim was to make it a thread woven throughout the tapestry rather than a blanket thrown over the entire thing. Like J said, we talked frequently throughout the writing of this story about making it clear that Sherlock’s decision to live came to be because he had many things to live _for_, including The Work _and_ John — not just because John had somehow convinced him to temporarily change his mind. I wanted this to be a love story above all, but a realistic one, rather than a Disney meet-cute.  
**J: **Whether to venture into explicit territory was a decision which was connected to the disability issue. We could have told this story without the porns, but would readers then have wondered if we just didn't want to go there because of Sherlock's disability? Researching what we needed to know in order to plan those scenes was absolutely fascinating, and it kind of was the discovery of Kenneth Connin's story about wanting to be a porn star which made me feel like the sex scene was something we really should do. It was a hell of a challenge to write that chapter, and there was a definite risk of focusing too much on technical details and exposition. Thank fucksicle Elsie added so much actual romance into it. In my hands there would probably have been spreadsheets and diagrams.

**Did you know each other well before this project?**  
**J: **We did know each other, even a bit beyond our writer personas but not _that _well, and only through interactions online. Our acquaintance up until then mostly consisted of yelling nice things about each other's fics. Come to think of it, I think we learned about one another just as John and Sherlock were learning about one another.  
**E: **Awwww. <3 That is true. There’s a certain amount of trust that comes with sharing something as personal as writing, especially writing such an emotional story as this one. We definitely reached some new levels in our friendship that probably wouldn’t have been reached had we not taken the leap into co-authorship.  
**J: **Through writing with 7PercentSolution I'd already learned that to write about sex with someone is quite an intimate experience. I believe I was kind of better prepared this time around for having to discuss the details of the um… porns. Yes. The Porns.  
**E: **Are you sure it wasn’t the fifty-page manual that prepared you for that?  
**J: **Sometimes *I* find it hard to believe I am a trained healthcare professional and not a twelve-year old snickering at the word _cock_.  
**E: **Also, as with most online friendships, we have never actually met in person. YET. But in *checks calendar* approximately 5 weeks, that will be remedied. I imagine you’ll probably be able to hear our squeeing from space.

**What other kinds of research was involved in planning the story besides fifty-page online sex manuals, and did you consult any experts for the story?**  
**J: **My friend's husband who's a composer & conductor proved invaluable when it came to solving the violin problem. 7PercentSolution was, as always, my go-to-expert in all things British. And, I also did pick some urologists' brains for the occasional important peetail.  
**E: **No you did *not* just type “peetail”! *facepalms* How OLD are you?!?  
**J: **Told you. Approximately twelve in fic author age.  
**E: **Even before she came along, I did loads of research on paraplegics with all levels of injury, PTSD, and the real Dignitas. Probably one of my favourite moments in researching, however, was the day J sent me that manual to read. That was um... educational.  
**J: **It was not porns, it was INFORMATIONS! Sheesh! And we ended up using lots of it. #informationaslubrication

_I don't want to play this game no more_  
_ I don't wanna play it_  
_ I don't want to stay 'round here no more_  
_ I don't wanna stay here_  
_ Like rain on a Monday morning_  
_ Like pain that just keeps on going on_  
— James Arthur

**How different do you think these reincarnations of Sherlock and John are from where they are in their lives at the start of ASiP?**  
**E: **I don’t think our story is as much of an AU as it is a slight detour off the canon-path.  
**J: **I'm certain Sherlock gets so tunnel-visioned when they're on a case that I find it entirely plausible that he'd run under a bus. Or a motorcycle. Or a taxi. Or a passing elephant.  
**E: **The John that we are introduced to at the beginning of ASiP is depressed and struggling with what appears to be serious PTSD, despite Mycroft’s very unqualified opinions to the contrary. Throughout the first chapters we wrote, we had many discussions about whether we were depicting our John’s PTSD too strongly, but all we had to do was revisit the scene in ASiP to remind ourselves that we really weren't. In that scene, John is visibly uncomfortable in public, struggling physically, and nearly in tears while talking to Mike Stamford, so canon-John really _was_that bad off. He was suicidal too, which we can infer from the gun in his drawer, so it wasn’t a far leap to assume that he would also struggle to ground himself in the everyday, and that flashbacks would be a regular occurrence in his life. It felt very important to me to give our John the space to work through this and not brush it off for the sake of an easier character arc.  
**J: **Initially, I focused so much on Sherlock that I didn't see the full potential of John's character arc. They both had a lot to learn, lots of decisions to make, and John wasn't in a good place at the start of the story for a new relationship, either.  
**E: **In BBC’s version, we only get glimpses of the Sherlock-before-John, but we know that he used drugs, and that he was lonely, abrasive, and careless about his own life. The scene I had in mind when I wrote Sherlock’s accident was when he darts across the road outside of Angelo’s and narrowly avoids getting hit by a car. Exploring his life before the accident was heartbreaking, but it gave us plenty of building blocks to reconstruct his new life in a shape that was a mixture of the good things of his old life and nice, new stuff.  
**J: **Such as his new handsome army doctor friend colleague blogger cockbuddy.

**How did you choose which scenes from MBY to keep and which ones to change?**  
**E: **Some scenes seemed to fit in seamlessly. For instance, Sherlock’s accident is almost exactly like Will’s, with the added flair of a dark London alley and a cab instead of a motorbike.  
**J: **The interview with Mycroft and John and Sherlock's first meeting also carries a lot of the MBY original scenes. Will's theatrical trickery, his snarky comments and his very Shezza appearance all seemed to fit our version so perfectly. The fake online support group names and the gay porns joke are examples of things which we borrowed from the original. And, Louisa also eventually snaps at Will that he didn't really have to be such as arsehole at everyone just like John does, and that's the breath of fresh air that seems to break the tension between these two fictional pairs. Both Louisa and John are honest and react genuinely, and both Will and Sherlock appreciate that after having to put up with all those endlessly patient and detached professionals.  
**E: **Whether we'd want to recreate the concert scene was a no-brainer; ours is, of course, somewhat expanded (since we wanted to ratchet up the angst to eleven!). I also really loved the idea of the two of them on a holiday like Lou and Will, but with the added Sherlockian backdrop of a case.  
**J: **John told us in ASiP that he was a very good doctor. Yet, we never really get to see proof of that on screen. That's something I love fixing with fic and adapting the MBY scene where Will gets sick was the perfect opportunity. Release the krak–– Captain Watson!  
**E: **We skipped a few big scenes from the original, simply because we couldn’t make them fit. One of my favourites that I couldn’t quite figure out how to work in is Lou’s birthday. Will comes to her tiny family home for dinner and gives her the most perfect, thoughtful birthday present, right in front of her dud of a fiancé. It’s deliciously satisfying. I hope we have created plenty of our own delicious scenes to make up for that missing one.  
**J: **I believe we both felt that Louisa's horse racing idea was just too random. There needed to be something better, something even more cringe-worthy, and if we could throw in a bit of delicious class confusion on John's part then all the better. That's how Frimley-the-terribleness was born.  
**E: **God, yeah. The horse racing day was awful. Possibly at times even more cringey than Frimley. And so very random.  
  
**Food seems to be another way through which John finds his way to a man's heart. Why'd you decide to make that a big point of disagreement between John and Mycroft?**  
**J: **It's kind of canonical that Sherlock's relationship with the needs of his body are a bit wonky. All that dismissive talk about the Transport, saying that he doesn't eat during cases… There's a very dualist view there about his intellect and his body having only a flimsy connection and the latter being considered just a useless burden, especially now. On the other hand, in the series we do see Sherlock enjoying treats and having nice meals with John, and I'm sure he loves a bit of comfort kibble just like any bloke would. The fact that he doesn't even have the energy to protest Mycroft's geriatric food regime is a major sign of depression, and bland and joyless food is yet another frequent reminder of what his life is now like and how little control he feels he has over its details. Through their takeaway meal, John gives him back that power to want things and to decide for himself. And, enticing Sherlock with a lovely meal also helps John introduce the idea that he really wants to help with the physical stuff, and wants Sherlock to feel comfortable accepting that help. Food just seemed like the perfect plot device to achieve those things.

**How were the cases in the story created?**  
**E: **Much of the case in Greece was written (at least in my head) while I was on holiday myself, drinking foofy fruity drinks with umbrellas. J had to later sculpt those scenes into something much less... relaxed. And the first case, Mr Henry’s, was actually a scene I had drafted months earlier and planned to include in a different fic, but it didn’t work out. So it only took a little bit of tweaking to include it in Point. Interestingly, the basis for that case (a paper boy being kidnapped) was a real case in my hometown.  
**J: **Don't try to tell her 'foofy' isn't a word, she'll fight you. Elsie writes the case, after which The JBall backs up a truck of angst and flops it on top.

_You tell me it gets better, it gets better in time_  
_ You say I'll pull myself together, pull it together_  
_ You'll be fine_  
_ Tell me what the hell do you know_  
_ What do you know_  
_ Tell me how the hell could you know_  
_ How could you know_

_'Til it happens to you, you don't know_  
_ How it feels_  
_ 'Til it happens to you, you won't know_  
_ It won't be real_  
— Lady Gaga

**Do you have experience of the themes in the story from your personal or professional lives?**  
E: Me — no, not as such. I’m a medical hobbyist (LOL doesn’t that make it sound like I don’t just Google shit for fun and watch countless Youtube videos and read articles??).  
**J: **Sounds more like you might dig up bits from the graveyard for experiments. *cackles*  
**E: **Shhhhhh... I don’t need the whole internet knowing how I spend my off hours! I did do some work in special education classrooms — often with children with very severe disabilities — in my early teaching years and at a camp for people with a variety of disabilities (mostly physical), so I was at least familiar with a lot of the terminology discussed in the fic. Everything else came from just loads of really enjoyable research.  
**J: **I'm not an orthopaedist or a neurologist, but in my patient work as a consulting anaesthesiologist I do frequently encounter paraplegic and tetraplegic patients, especially when working for the urology service. I also occasionally handle urgent and emergency surgery for such patients right after they have been injured. I've not been asked for direct assistance in suicide, but I wouldn't be surprised to receive such a request. Dealing with severely injured and disabled patients' suicidal ideation, however, is something I have encountered many times. I think it's because I am _not_in a rehabilitative medical field that I could relate to John's apprehension about meeting Sherlock's needs and learning about his daily routines. The average medical graduate knows astonishingly little about things such as safe transfers and long-term bladder management as opposed to, say, the average recently graduated nurse; all of the stuff I got to research for this story has been very valuable information in my own work as a doctor. A flare-up of autonomic dysreflexia in the OR is now something I feel much more confident about managing — and also educating our registrars and students about.  
  
**Does Proving A Point sound more like Elldotsee or J. Baillier?**  
**J: **I like to believe it sounds like both of us, that our styles merged. There are, however, certain chapters which were mostly drafted by one author. Examples: chapter one is very much an Elldotsee affair. I might also reiterate that Elldotsee was particularly focused on John's recovery and character arc while Mycroft was very much my area.  
**E: **Yeah that’s pretty spot-on, really. We also both made a conscious effort to blend in lots of bits of MBY and BBC’s Sherlock, both in terms of themes and sprinkled-in quotes. It was fun to reread chapters as we did our final edits before posting and realise that it was blended so seamlessly that we couldn't even remember who had written what. I think that’s the ultimate goal of co-authoring.  
**J: **She sure likes her canon nods, so it was fun to try to surprise her by shoving in new ones. Yet another joy of co-authoring is that you get to be surprised by the events of your own story. **  
****E: **And brought to tears by it! That happened many times to both of us. "_You made me cry in my own damn story, you witch__!_" is a thing that I may have yelled at her once or twice.

**Most surprising moments during the writing process?**  
**J: **Finding out what the cases were going to be like and whodunnit. I am not much of a casefic writer, thankfully Elsie can roll with the best in that regard. For her I suspect the surprising moments included every time she was thinking of something she wanted to add, only to find that I had added that very thing while she was sleeping. Brain-meld.  
**E: **Mm yes that is equally freaky and useful. Brain twin. Everyone should have one. I think it was also surprising to discover that we often had very similar headcanons about things we hadn’t actually discussed ahead of time. And I know there were many times when a line you wrote in made me gasp aloud because GAH. So PERFECT. And J was always surprised when I enjoyed it.

**Was there anything you disagreed on during the process which required negotiating?**  
**E: **Nothing of consequence. **  
****J: **I really don't recall any major negotiations. I did regularly try to insist that Elsie was the executive producer and she kept insisting we were equal shareholders.

**A reader on Tumblr posed a very serious question: did you both do your best to try to have the events of '**_The Study in Stimulation_' **happen in chapter twenty-six?**  
**J: **Originally the headline of that chapter in the full draft said "chapter twenty-sex". Because I'm ridiculous and I like to heckle Elsie.  
**E: **It *was* Chapter Twenty-Six! But it got bumped when we got too wordy and had to split prior chapters. RIP, perfectly executed chapter title.

**Why was Sherlock's choice different from that of Will Traynor?**  
**J: **Short answer is that he's not Will Traynor — and Will Traynor is not Sherlock Holmes. In my interpretation yes, Sherlock cares greatly about his outward appearance and how people see him, but it's more of a means to an end than genuine vanity. His looks are his protective armour against people disliking his personality, and his athletic abilities are a means to an end with cases. In comparison, at least to me, Will seemed to be a person very preoccupied with looks and sports and appearances in a different way: for him, those were the great joys of his life instead of more intellectual pursuits, and losing them hit him hard in a way that was a bit different from Sherlock. Will couldn't readjust his perspective to look past all those things and to see the good things, more constructive things in his life, and his injury was also higher up in his cervical spine. John's appearance in Sherlock's life introduced a thing he had never had — someone he loved and who loved him back and supported him and accepted him unconditionally. He also got clean during his recovery. Will, I imagine, thought that he had quite the perfect life before the accident, and that nothing he could add to his life after the accident would be new and great enough that it would matter.  
**E: **Sherlock is not Will and John is not Lou. Lou was fun and entertaining, but she and Will never managed to achieve the same real, raw emotional level of relationship that John and Sherlock explored. They were able to be vulnerable with _each other_, so it didn’t feel as one-sided. John helped Sherlock rediscover bits of his old life, through The Work and the flat and his friends, but also discover brand new possibilities that he hadn’t even considered before, like having a healthy, loving romantic partnership.

**Will Switzerland ever be entirely off the table for Sherlock?**  
**J: **Some patients who suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks in public carry with them a few tablets of benzodiazepines. Some of them never end up taking a single one, but it's enough to know they're there if they need it. I have read that surprisingly many terminally ill patients who have made executable assisted suicide or suicide plans end up not utilising them. Such things can be a back-up plan, something that gives one peace of mind while exploring if there are still days left in life worth seeing through. We can't know at this point whether Sherlock eventually develops such complications from his tetraplegia that he feels that the quality of his life becomes unacceptable. But, knowing that he has that option and that there's someone in his life now who will support him and help him retain his autonomy no matter how difficult things get, will probably help a lot in getting through the tougher days. They have professional nursing help at home, but at Baker Street that staff works at Sherlock's discretion — he's their boss rather than someone Mycroft hires help for — and John does a lot which must make Sherlock feel less like just one patient among many.  
**E: **I think J’s right that knowing that Switzerland is still an option helps it to stay off of the actual table and maybe just rest comfortably on a shelf, or maybe in a glass case, to be used in an emergency. It certainly would be a decision he would not take lightly, and though it would ultimately be his decision when — if — the time comes, I like to think that he would discuss it at length with John and that the two of them would explore all other options first.  
**J: **Over the years, I think that proverbial glass case will get dusty and eventually they'll probably sort of forget it's there.

**How was Musgrave Court designed?  
****J: **Musgrave Court is a fusion of a lovely Tudor-era manor house in Windsor named [Dorney Court](https://dorneycourt.co.uk/), and the fictional house featured in MBY. In the book/movie, the Traynor family also own the castle sitting smack in the middle of the small town, but we decided that Musgrave Court would be fancy and big enough for Mycroft to prance about in, playing Lord of the Castle. 7PercentSolution has kindly taken me all around southern England to learn about ye Englyshe country piles, which was all very useful for creating the atmosphere we wanted.

**Are the other locations in the story real?**  
**J: **[Frimley is real](https://www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk/our-hotels/south-england/camberley/macdonald-frimley-hall-hotel-spa/spa). The [hotel in Greece is real](https://www.elysium.gr/en/).  
**E: **London... London is real. I just wanted to answer this question, but you already took the good ones. Yes, Frimley is absolutely real, but we may have little-shop-of-horror-fied it a bit for our nefarious purposes. I’m sure it’s a lovely place.  
**J: **We should visit for penance; have high tea at the salon.  
**E: **Joke’s on us when we of course have a wonderful time.

**Were there any medical things in which you had to economise on realism?**  
**J: **Not much, no. We tried to make Sherlock's condition as realistic as possible in terms of what could be achieved with more rehabilitation and what issues he'd face with pressure sores and bladder control and autonomic dysfunction. What his body would still be capable off in terms of sex required us to tweak the details of his injury so that certain things could be left a bit ambiguous. Discovering the story of Rafe Biggs was a godsend, and it felt so logical that Sherlock's follicles could evolve into some Marvel superpower-level new erogenous zone. It was fascinating, speculating on all the sex stuff: how things would feel and how Sherlock would deal with the fact that so many sensations were missing. *resists the urge to start rambling about the neural control of ejaculation*  
**E: **No, like J said, we really wanted this to be as realistic as possible, so as not to detract from the main plot of our story. I think it would have cheapened the romance quite a bit if things just “magically” worked when they shouldn’t have, or if we never talked about catheters kinking, or muscle spasms, or stupid inaccessible parking lots or all the other little nitty-gritty bits that we hoped made this story come to life.  
**J: **What happens in chapter 31 regarding Sherlock's pain management may be ever so slightly ahead of its time; there have been successful trials to help patients with upper limb and shoulder neuropathic pain with nerve stimulation but it's not as standard a treatment method as nerve stimulators are for sciatic/lower limb pain. Possibly it's a thing that will become more common in the next few years. We'll see.

**What were the hardest or most emotional scenes to write?**  
**J: **The first thing that comes to mind is that drafting Sherlock's reunion with Mrs Hudson was definitely a positive sort of very emotional bit.  
**E: **Without a doubt, the most emotionally difficult scene to write was the one when John thinks he’s spending his last night with Sherlock, and then wakes up and thinks he’s gone already — I’m getting a bit teary just typing that, actually. Even though I obviously knew the outcome, it was still awful to put myself into his head for those brief scenes. The first few scenes when we meet John and he’s doing more-than-a-bit-not-good were also pretty tough to explore. The wedding was the very last big scene I drafted and I struggled with it a bit too, wanting it to be perfect for our favourite guys.  
**J: **That wedding scene is a good example of the benefits of co-authoring. We knew how we wanted to do the dance bit, but Elsie couldn't quite work out the wording, and to her it didn't feel like it worked so she originally drafted a version in which their dance resembles that of Will & Louisa's at Will's ex's wedding where she sits in his lap. But, I was insistent about doing what this one groom had done in real life, so I just tried it out for size, keeping most of Elsie's original but adding that concept and we think it kinda works okay now. We'll leave it to the readership to decide. Other tough scenes: I drafted the ones at the hospital when Sherlock contracts pneumonia and John makes his peace with letting Sherlock make the decisions concerning his life. That was quite… I've not quite dealt with such a theme before, where the stakes were so high.  
**E: **We worked on the Greece conversation quite a bit too, playing around with various phrasing in order to convey just the right amount of absolutely shit communication while still being logical.  
**J: **They were saying a lot but it was all the wrong things and, as 88thparallel would probably say, John was a born-two-weeks-ago angry oblivious pickled portobello head but we forgive him because he was under so much pressure. Dude has his limits.  
**E: **Agreed on The Grecian Misunderstanding of the Century. Other emotional bits included Hey John — Not Dead, Sherlock’s breakdown during the concert, their wedding dance, John talking quietly to Sherlock in the hospital. Shit... did we write ANY chapters that didn't make people cry?  
**J: **John at the hospital. John talking to Tallie at the hotel bar after arguing with Sherlock. Arthur's arrival. More crying.

**Any favourite moments during the whole Point process?**  
**E: **Posting that much-anticipated first chapter, as official co-authors, is one of my fic career highlights. I love the first chapter because it introduces the three main characters in little vignette-like bits and it just DUMPS on the angst right from the first word. The countless hours of discussion with a like-minded person, equally intense in our research and our desire to do this fic the right way, even with all of its huge and intimidating themes, is another favourite moment from the creation of this fic. My favourite John-and-Sherlock moments are all of the quiet ones when they are just together – ordering and eating Chinese food (in bed or on the couch), watching James Bond or Strictly, casually discussing sex positioning, flirting over their food at dinner or over dead bodies in the morgue. I love when they can just be wholly and delightfully _them. _  
**J: ***nods* The best bit of co-authoring definitely is that there is suddenly a person who knows and loves your story as much as you do, and is game for endlessly discussing it — unlike your other friends who probably begin to dread your phone calls at some point. Frimley was definitely a fine writing moment in the process because it sort of established us as co-authors. Out of small moments _in _the story, I like (among other things) John and Sherlock's fledgling cooperation as a consulting team during the first case, John chasing Sherlock around the annex to demand to know about his favourite ice cream flavour, their fumbling start to lovemaking, John and Mycroft's walk-and-talk and John's first meeting with Hudders. And oh! The comments section. Cthulhu bless this fandom; that comments section really took off in a major way. This is such a nice fandom to write for. The reader commentary has been amazing.

  
  
_ Every second I get older there's a line_  
_ I get down and pray for time_  
_ Every moment is a boulder being fired_  
_ Every night a day has died_

_Let it go, you can't try to race it_  
_ Don't you know you don't have to face it,_  
_ Keep your head, don't be misled to waste it_  
— Saint Saviour

**If there was a theme song and a roll end credits song for the story, what would those be?**  
**J&E: **Theme song would be James Arthur's "_Recovery_"; end credits possibly Lady Gaga's "_Till It Happens To You_" or maybe The Chainsmokers' & Coldplay's "_Something Just Like This_".  
**E: **Bastille’s _"Good Grief"_!  
**J: **GODDAMNIT MY CAR INSISTS I WANT TO LISTEN TO IT EVERY TIME I START THE DAMNED ENGINE GODDAMNIT WHAT HAVE YOU DONE YOU WITCH  
**E**: *innocent smile*

**Any other songs you have strong associations with for the story?**  
**J: **Anna Nalick's "_Wreck of The Day_" for those bits when John is taken to his crappy flat and he tries to muster up some motivation to go on. Fleurie's "_Hurricane_" for John's first visit to 221B. By the way, Fleurie is a good example of how fic sometimes leads to good music: the music picks for shelleysprometheus' "Dead Man's Money" led me to discover the artist. "_Where Is My Mind_" by Yoav & Emily Browning is definitely our sad boys relaxing on the Greek notsexholiday. Another good roll end credits song would be "_Bittersweet Symphony_" by London Grammar. Sherlock's admission of measuring time by the appearance of John in his life is definitely "_5Am_" by Amber Run. Sherlock's breakdown at the concert is certainly Arabella Steinbacher's violin performance of Piazzolla's "_Oblivion_". And John running to the annexe on that terrible June morning is definitely Saint Saviour's "_Let It Go_".  
E: I’d also like to add “_This Isn’t Everything You Are_” by Snow Patrol for the interim between Greece and Sherlock’s pneumonia, and Jaymes Young’s _“Feel Something” _as Sherlock’s general theme song.  
**J: **There's a [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQgNMjnk84DphcgtC_I61OUMnp4SWft2o).

**Will there be more stories in this AU?**  
**E: **Dunno why J left me to answer this one, but YES. So far... three.  
**J: **I was just trying to be nice and wait my turn. Only child, learning to share.

**What's next in your fic careers besides these glimpses into the heads of other Point characters?**  
**E: **I have about 12 half-written WIPs in my folder; probably one of those will be in front of your eyeballs soon. Oh, and a bonus one-shot for my beloved spacebois as my contribution to Fandom Trumps Hate will be published before the end of the year.  
**J: **Well, I have quite a few stories lined up in the _You Go To My Head _series, so friends of Doctors Holmes and Watson can certainly expect them to return soon. I also have an AU by the name _Thermocline _all drafted. Through that story I get to take my readers to perhaps my favourite place which is the bottom of the ocean, and share my love of scuba diving. Thermocline!John is a horndog, Thermocline!Sherlock is ace and it's gonna be a wild ride.  


**___________________________________________________________**  
  


**Some not necessarily very politically correct quotes from along the writing process (guest starring our beta 88thparallel):**

J: *smashes sad boys together* NOW KISS

E: "You don't need to be so formal with me. This isn't a business transaction."  
J: "I just don't want you to call me the Genghis Khan of fic and tell me to take my invading armies to the next AU. This is your playground and I'm not allowed to break the swing set."

E: "OMG J you took this disaster and made it made SENSE and I feel so much less like blahh this is just a heap of scenes. it's an actual STORY now — with a PLOT!"

J: "helloooo greg. hellooooo john-person. where is my consulting detective, john person? he is hiding but please tell me how amazing and mad he is. yes i will do this immediately john-person."  
E: "john-person we are desperate, bribe him with these murders. ok detective inspector gregory lestrade, i will bribe your consulting detective with these murders, this is a good murder well done."

E: "Our story in a nutshell: depressed army doctor man pops a rage boner over the mistreatment of sad limp noodle by poncy tweed brother person."  
J: "Limp noodle reinvigorated by fresh murder, insults commence with white-clad man of inferior intelligence. Long-term efficiency of sad limp noodle re-employment plan by stubborn!turnip!man still uncertain. Yet undetermined whether detective inspector able to provide murders with wheelchair access in the future. Meanwhile, ignoring of sufficient fibre intake cause of pseudo-romantic bonding between limp noodle and john-person. Erections pending."

J: "Who invented the sound description 'snick' for lube bottle corks?"

E: "_'John Watson — hero of the disabled cock_' should be a tag."

J: "Strange poncy tweed man appears, serves good tea, makes cryptic statement."

J: "Sprinkles should be on donuts, not genitals."

88: "John Hamish Garbage Can Big Dick Walk Watson, CALM THYSELF."

E: "Tallie don't take shit from nobody."  
88: "Tallie for president 2020."

88: "I DO NOT LIKE THIS TITLE BECAUSE IT SCARES ME"

E: "This makes me giggle. John's being all _splutter splutter I HATE BEING OUTNUMBERED - 'YOU LOOK STUPID'._"  
E: "Sherlock: '_Oh yeah? You're calling me ridiculous? WELL YOURE A NEANDERTHAL_.'"  
E: "They're children."

88: "SAY IT JOHN, YOU PICKLED PORTOBELLO HEAD"

88: "Is he sunburned? Because that pasty little loaf of white bread has got to be toasted after 10 minutes' worth of UV exposure"  
J: "Pasty English twig."  
88: "Breadstick."  
E: "Leave it to you to worry about his skin at a time like this."  
88: "I'm just saying it's no fun to be a crisp on vacation."

88: "That didn't even occur to me because I am also sometimes a potato head."

88: "OH MY GOD SHERLOCK JUST BROUGHT JOHN A TROPICAL DRINK?! ENGRAVE THIS ON MY TOMBSTONE"  
J: "This scene brought to you by Elldotsee, whose travels turned her foofy."

E: "Trashcan John back at his bullshit."

J: "It probably takes about 7 minutes for Sherlock to get bored on a vacation unless there is a jawn available."  
E: "Speaking from experience, love?"  
J: "No. I wouldn't know because I never have a jawn available."

J: "Don't go playing on those dangerous cliffs, John Hamish! Remember what happened to Humpty!"

88: "I do not like the way this is going where is the sex"  
J: "I am imagining you shaking your head quickly back and forth trying to understand where all your porns suddenly evaporated."  
E: "That was not the order we described. HEART WRENCHING ANGST. Then sex"

88: "John, my sweet, rock hard, fragile, ribbon candy-hearted man..."  
J: "Well, frottage can kinda deflate when the other boinkee starts talking about suicide."

J: "Bristly noodle turned into a noodle of fury."

88: "Those Holmeses can be pains in the ass sometimes can't they."  
J: "Especially without an adequate amount of lubrication."

J: "Alternate title for chapter: _Limp Smol Noodle and Angry Army Chorizo make love_."

E: "Our John is solidly bisexual."  
J: "And Sherlock makes him very solid indeed."

J: "Probably he's got so many shitty memories from his own bedroom that he wants a fresh, man-musk-marinated start in John's bed."

88: "I never thought Viagra could be so endearing"  
J: "Cocks-r-us."

88: "This John is the sweet summer sausage we all need."

88: "Also wtf does Donovan see in Anderson, I've never understood."  
J: "Perhaps he was simply available. Or maybe he's got the shapeliest cock on this side of the Thames. Or maybe he's like the English champion of cunnilingus. We'll never know."

J: "He worries, yes, about how he'd compare to hot able-bodied hunk soldier boy Watson."

88: "You know you said rollercoaster of emotions but I didn't know you'd be TYING ME TO THE TRACKS AND RUNNING ME OVER WITH THE TRAIN"  
J: "choo choo"  
88: "JESUS UNTIE ME FROM THESE TRACKS YOU MADWOMEN"  
88: "This is like the part after the rollercoaster ends when you get to see the ride photo of yourself being RUN OVER LIKE EMOTIONAL ROADKILL and I love you psychos for it"  
88: "OH MY GOD WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME I THOUGHT YOU LIKED ME WAIT WHY DO WE SHOW EACH OTHER LOVE THIS WAY"

88: "I think this story is rewiring my DNA so that it is never going to leave me. My heart is a pile of rotting ground beef right now"

J: "Nobody knows if he gave sherlock that Amex or whether Sherlock just stole it. Hard to be an inconspicuous pickpocket in a wheelchair tho."

88: "OMG He's lonely? Afraid to be on his own? Poor noodle! <3"  
J: "My brain read "pool noodle" and went 'um okay the bathtub scene's coming so accurate'."

88: "AHHHH STOP I'LL DIE IN A PUDDLE OF HEARTS"  
J: "Why does it feels entirely like a thing to imagine you swimming around contentedly in a pool of bleeding human hearts."

J: "Call me by your name. And then meditate on our weird-ass relationship."

88: "Oh Sherlock, you devious dill pickle you know exactly why. I mean, even if he doesn't know he's aroused he still knows he's floating there like a man-sized filet mignon in a butcher case."  
J: "Or does he? Or does he think he's just sort of weird and honky-looking and no one would ever possibly want to have sex things with him?"

88: "This is all very good"  
E: "VERY GOOD ERECTION. VERY GOOD."  
J: "WELL DONE SHERLOCK"

88: "I don't think I've ever heard pajama in the singular..."  
J: "I must have been thinking about bananas in pyjamas. Plus it's very much physically possible to just have one banana."

88: "Tallie, you're a third wheel. Begone."

88: "John, you preening scamp."  
J: "Best tactic for bedding army doctors: insult their dress sense."

88: "Oh, John, you numbskull, don't ask about that in public. You better have been like 2cm from his ear."

J: "This chapter was all nice and datey and positive and MBY canony so I had to ruin it with a truckload of angst."

J: "Idiots realising they're idiots but they're just gonna go on idioting."

88: "I'm all choked up."  
J: "It's alright lanky noodle muffin, Jawn is here."

88: "JOHN HAMISH TRASHCAN SEXGOD WATSON, YOU GO TO YOUR ROOM THIS INSTANT FOR THINKING SUCH THINGS"

88: "Listen you have put me in some sort of emotional blender, and I don't even know WHAT I'm feeling right now. ALL THE THINGS. I'm soup du emojion."  
J: "There's mush in that soup, I can tell."

88: "HOW DARE"  
J: "He dare fine, he's just chickening out."  
88: "You twatsicle! He finally felt ALIVE. John I'm gonna murder you, you absolute knucklehead I stg! You're not even a trashcan right now, you're an entire dumpster in a back alley!"

88: "THERE WE GO. Lightbulb moment for our favorite squash-brain"

J: "This is very John-in-ASiP. All moony-eyes over this lanky bloke with the cheekbones and the clevers."

J: "Well, they were tossing around things before and it was progressssss and maybe soon they'll um… toss off? Thought I doubt that's what you were thinking but hey, I like this theory better #COCK."

J: "I keep finding these sentences that end like a drunken driver's journey through a mountain road safety railing. Elldotsee must have been very distracted the day she drafted this."

88: "Shine, my smol detective star, SHINE!"

88: "I'm reading it as Sherlock bluffing or whatever, and John just not picking up on it and being like, "what it doesn't look infected" and sherlock like WINK WINK I'd like to get a LOOK AT IT JAWN because it obviously wasn't a cat and Jawn like "durrrrr"."  
J: ""Durrrrrrr" is the beta comment of the month."

J: "Hard, eh, waggle waggle."  
E: "Down, girl."

88: "I love seeing him in his element again! I hope this is a huge turning point for him <3"  
J: "A huge turnip point."  
88: "ba dum tsssss"  
J: "* smugness reaches defcon 1 level *"

J: "I made this Anderson 56% meaner."  
E: "^^^ truth. I made him just a bit of a tosser. J came for blood."

E: "JBall if you ever start logically segueing, I’m calling 911."  
88: "Listen, I am not here for logic."

J: "At some point John would probs wonder how crap it would be not to have wanked in two years."  
E: "I don’t imagine he’d be very delicate about it either. Would probably just *ask*. John Watson is as delicate as an elephant."  
J: ""_Are you rich?_" Very suave, dude."

E: "Fuck yeah, milk those erections. I pat myself on the back daily for this brilliant coauthor idea."

88: "Omg I love this and it also breaks my soul so I simultaneously hate it."

J: "I wrote some fluff I wrote some fluff don't tell anyone."  
E: "Oh god. I was all ready for some serious fluff. But you put it THERE?!?!? I'm only on the second sentence and tearing up. I DON'T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT FLUFF IS!!!"

88: "Come out, my sweet smol detective. It's safe again <3. Seriously I'm over here giggling and squealing and swallowing down happy little chirps. I love you John Watson, you pure sugar-coated beam of actual sunshine!"


End file.
